Happy Indie Day, FilipiNas and No-s!  Most of my long time readers know I’m all over renowned MUA Lisa Eldridge’s channel like a rash and I know she inspires a lot of other women as well.  She is my ultimate inspiration in an earthly person when it comes to my makeup career.  There is also something I really like that she uses often… it isn’t a tube of lipstick but it’s still got “makeup” written all over it.

It’s Lisa’s  red lipped PRADA dress which she first saw whenworn by Michelle Williams on British Elle in 2010 (this was also worn by French actress Lea Seydoux) and then she went out and bought the same one.   I happened to be in ZARA last month, a place that I mentally mark with a DO NOT ENTER on most days of the month.  This day however I was really badly on the hunt for some clothes, comfortable clothes, and lo and behold…among the cheaper racks I spotted this cotton top.  I’m pretty chuffed to have it, it fits me like a glove .

The lips aren’t printed exactly the same but the pattern flatters me and I like that it’s sort of a younger version of what she’s wearing. I also like that some of the lips are bleeding lipcolor…ooh!

Ugh, I’m currently trying to remember the price, all I remember is I smiled because it was about Php599 or was it Php799?  I’m 100% sure it was way under Php1000 because I took it immediately and went to pay for it.  Walking out of ZARA with this one not too expensive item made me feel like I was walking out with ten!

With the obvious fact that I am jetlagging out of the way I just wanted to rub this in…I’m back. I also wanted to share that I was in Urban Outfitters for the first time. I actually felt really “poor” inside surrounded by too many “my type” items. Since it was my maiden visit to UO I decided to make it memorable and with my 30th birthday for razor sharp reason I exactly got away with my most memorable, most pricy single non-beauty purchase. This gorgeously spring-y MADE brand for Urban Outfitters pullover.

It was £75 so yes it is expensive and I had a long think for it in-store while my cousin fit her stuff. That’s about Php4k++ with the current exhange rate of Php64 to a £, but as a result I didn’t buy anything else in the shop. It’s gorgeously artsy with sort of smeared not too light pastel colors all over, so at least it wasn’t like Care Bear crack lol. It stood out in a Unicorn-ish way on the rack and ad a more classy tie-dye-but-not-tie-dye feel to it. It is comfy and not too warm to wear here…it isn’t heavy at all.

I felt for once that I didn’t want to get something off the sale rack on a maiden visit to a good brand. My cousin Kiana tried hilariously spewing criticism at it to see how I’d defend it LOL after 2 attempts she said “OK you have to get it, I just did that to see how much you wanted it.” What a girl. She was right and so I made it mine. By the way be on the alert, in the next day or two I shall be putting up a UK Beauty giveaway with stuff that to my knowledge you can’t really get here locally, before that a review might go up first.

Beauty videos, to say the least, are all very engaging but sometimes silence and a wash of beautiful photos over some prose is golden.  It’s equally relaxing to have a read through some of the most prolific beauty blogs online.  By the way this is part 2 of the Lil’ Black Book of Beauty Pt.1 post I began first containing the channels I watch.  I sometimes don’t  have the time to download or wait for a full video to stream, so reading these blogs is the quickest way to stay updated.  To save even more time I don’t always cart around my 17″ ASUS laptop (which baffles everyone who sees it) to read these.  I have most of the blogs booted via RSS on my Android Pulse Reader app (available for Apple, too) which allows me to view all the blogs I choose by row and I can immediately scroll to see if there’s a new post or not because of thumbnails then I can read them via Pulse, too.  This way I don’t waste precious time loading up each website /channel only to find some may not have an update.  Also once you’ve loaded them you can read the posts offline if you’re on the go, great for traffic on certain days.

I have a Pulse page for blogs, local blogs, and a pulse page for YouTube channels.  Many of them are British and reading through a ton of British blogs has actually improved my writing because no one  writes English like the English…ahem.  I do have a certain bias towards European beauty blogs simply because it’s the dead smack center of carefully developed luxury beauty brands using the freshest and best ingredients and also because they’ve banned over a thousand questionable chemicals for use in cosmetics (the U.S. have reportedly only banned 9?).  Okay, enough blabber, click  read more to see what are more or less my daily beauty reads.

LIPGLOSSIPING.COM / Charlotte Thompson

Twitter & Instagram: @lipglossiping

Let’s begin with my “fevohreht”, after all, I have been following her blog daily for the past 3 and a half years now.  It was Charlotte’s blog, Lipglossiping.com that helped supply the main vibe of the inspiration you see on my blog today.  We’re in touch personally and have even done a swap.  I discovered her blog about mid 2010 when I was excitedly Googling for more information on the Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Palette and it turns out she was the British blogger sent a package for the UK’s first look at it that year.  She won the Johnson & Johnson Best Beauty blog award for 2011(?) and is among the top 3 beauty blogs in the UK today.  The pristine photos on her blog absolutely drew me in as well as her proficiently written, thought-filled, snark-y musings on life and beauty.  She also does meal and recipe posts once in awhile to change it up.  I am also in love with the way Charlotte chronicles the growth of her lovely daughter, Leila, seen here wearing toxin and solvent-free kiddie polish.  I’ll never forget the year 2010, it was when the world of online beauty opened up for me and there wasn’t the feel of “too much beauty noise” yet.  Everyone just had a happy not-too-annoyingly-uppity vibe about all their new discoveries.

WORSHIPBLUES.COM / Yasumi Toyoda aka “Fushigi Lady”

The Fushigi Lady (as she calls herself) of Worshipblues.com is a London-based Japanese online curator/oversharer of all things artful, beautiful, and dainty, modern or vintage.  She does a careful cocktail of beauty, skincare, travel, art, stationery musings, accessories, photos of abandoned buildings, local and overlooked boutiques, and once in awhile or increasingly more often, food…shaken not stirred.  She makes trips to and from Japan which makes her blog a delightfully well-written mix of East and West.  She’s very sweet and replied joyfully on Twitter when I said I loved her blog and had one of my own.  Yasumi also owns a well-loved online shop called “Fushigi Shop” for her handpicked/handmade creations.

INTOTHEGLOSS.COM/Emily Weiss and team ITG

Dita Von Teese to ITG

Laura Mercier to ITG

This is like THE Beauty Blog.  Emily Weiss has put up what is now one of the most sought after “IT”  U.S. beauty blogs in the world, which is ITG (IntotheGloss.com).  Emily and her team have got the front row on nearly everything that’s anything in the beauty blogosphere and being expected in big places they get to travel so much as a result.  Her blog is most probably as popular and revered as you wish yours ever could be.  Practically every beauty brand in the biz wants ITG to like and feature them.  Dior (see first photo) had Emily do an eye tutorial for them.  Now a team (so they can be everywhere), ITG has evolved into an online magazine of sorts while still retaining that non-contrived /raw feel which is what makes a blog a blog, but more now a blogazine.  They’re still candid in expressing what they think it’s just that now they’ve got invites to the best sources.  It’s a very thin line between this and something like Vogue Beauty branching out on its own, but the line is still there.  On ITG it’s like you get a backstage pass to major high fashion events and absolutely fresh beauty reviews, the latest (as in almost to the minute) beauty scoop, intimate word-for-word written interviews with celebrity icons, supermodels, beauty and hair professionals, and chats with unique individuals as they spill the brands and tips in their beauty arsenal.  ITG is wanted at nearly every beauty launch that’s at the top.  Emily and her team have only interviewed after all the likes of Essie herself (yes, Essie nail polish), Dita Von Teese sharing her cosmetic approach as a Burlesque beauty, Laura Mercier giving her beautiful back story on becoming who she is (and making up Madonna the 1st time), and more recently Drew Barrymore on her latest undertaking with her own new beauty brand.  ITG also does videos once every few months on their YouTube channel IntoTheGlossMotion.  This is the blog that proves pictures with flash aren’t always uncool…on their end flash evokes reality and popularity.  ITG makes me love reading casually about what these “top” individuals are using and some of these revelations show they’re surprisingly simplistic and minimal in their approach to beauty.

MESSYWANDS.COM/Xiao

Xiao’s blog, MessyWands.com is so neat and clean and yet there’s enough rawness in the photos that makes the blog more sincere.  Her skin up close isn’t photoshopped to the nines and she’s got a light but skillful hand with color.  Her taste in cosmetics, more often than not is luxurious and the blog feels minimal but not at all lacking in content.  She really has put the blinders on and focused primarily on high-street to luxury makeup.  I do think once in awhile she does a skincare mention but what makes Xiao’s blog exceedingly lovely to visit are her spot on pretty FOTDs (face of the day features) where she combines colors from a lot of the products she is sent or stuff she has bought by luxury brands.  To flaunt her reputation, let me make mention of brands like Clinique and Europe’s Rouge Bunny Rouge who usually send her their latest releases.

BRITISHBEAUTYBLOGGER.COM/ Jane Cunningham

On BritishBeautyBlogger.com you’ll find the latest and greatest when it comes to mostly stuff from Europe.  UK’s Jane Cunningham is really a beauty editor/insider by day which explains her access to and hands-on reviews for so many brands.  Jane gets early previews of stuff sometimes way before other bloggers do.  She’s also got a lot of moxie and doesn’t shy away from openly disclosing if a brand’s PR person misread her or communicated weakly (sometimes she’ll take it as far as quoting them openly w/o mentioning who they are) which is partly why a lot of brands trust her honest opinion.  She’s not afraid of what others think, on her site her opinion is all that matters.  She also has quite a lot of posts tackling blogger, PR, and media issues in the industry that are all very well written.

BEAUTYBETS.COM / Elizabeth Dehn

Elizabeth Dehn is BeautyBets.com and she’s now made it a team.  She is as her site says “an editor, lifestyle writer, and beauty enthusiast who worked for Aveda, Kiehl’s, Target and several magazines before launching the blog in 2009. When not schmearing on face masks or battling her new body wave, she covers the beauty and wellness beats for Mpls.St. Paul Magazine, Marie Claire, Divine Caroline, and Twin Cities Live television. Her work has also appeared in Minnesota Monthly, the Star Tribune, Sotheby’s Artful Living magazine, Fashion Weekly, Everyday with Rachael Ray, Rue Magazine and Glamour.”  The articles on BeautyBets.com are light, not that long and well edited.

THECHERRYBLOSSOMGIRL.COM/ Alix Bancourt

Her site, TheCherryBlossomGirl.com is primarily about fashion since Alix is a French (yes, not Japanese) fashion graduate from a few years back, but hers was one of the first style sites I visited that once in awhile had beauty features intertwined (here she is with a bottle of Chloe perfume. The photos are nothing short of exquisite (with a lot of drama though, a bit too much sometimes I think) and with her porcelain skin and dark hair she kind of looks as if she could pass as Dita Von Teese’s daughter.  What’s amazing is she shoots almost all of her own editorials…it’s a bit flabbergasting because they’re so awesome.

FASHIONTOAST.COM / Rumi Neely

For more laid back, not overly ethereal (unlike the Cherry Blossom Girl) Cali girl street style I always, always refer to Rumi of FashionToast.com.  She throws things on and they just look.. correct.  That’s pretty much it…anything she proclaims to love or posts on her blog sells like wildfire throughout the U.S. (and parts of Japan since she is half-Japanese) and she really tries to be unpretentiously healthy.  You probably have seen her prancing around online with our very own Bryan Boy who happens to be somewhat of a declared soulmate of hers…they are undoubtedly BFFs, but I am very much more interested in hermusings.  She, like Alix, once in awhile weaves in beauty items into her posts and I like how Rumi keeps it not too wordy, everything on her blog is what she thinks basically stripped down.  Rumi is forever circling the globe to sit in the front rows of the latest runway shows and whatever she chooses to bring with her often become industry highlights.

You must be wondering why I said most of the blogs I read are British…I already mentioned them in the Part 1 post of this series.  The written blogs of the channels I watch comprise the rest of the foreign blog list I go through and all their site links are here at the Lil’ Black Book of Beauty Pt.1 post.

I’m actually not sure if I should be sharing slash promoting this…so let’s say for now I’m just raving, but I found this Topshop tape measure and got it off Ebay and it was so, so cute and could not resist placing an order for it…then I found out, oops, it happened to be a freebie with online global purchases.

It cost me about £8.50 in total with shipping from Ebay, so that’s about Php500.  It’s actually the current free gift with ANY ORDER from the Topshop.com global website so I’m not quite exactly sure if they’re giving these out with purchases also at Topshop boutiques locally…I’d say most probably not, but it’s better to be sure so you can check your local boutique first.  Anyway some enterprising, international Topshop shoppers obviously thought they didn’t need the ones they got with their purchases so that’s how some ended up on Ebay and they lured in happy suckers like me…I’m not regretting the purchase because I really don’t plan to get Topshop clothes online and so this was practically the only way I could own one for myself.  So just be aware that if you plan to do some online Topshop shopping… there is no need to pay just to get one of these off the net elsewhere, you’ll certainly get one with your online purchase.  I’ve no time right now to put up my wishlists but the photos are certainly piling up and both the Beauty and Non-Beauty Wishlist editions will be up soon.  I’ve got to do groceries and Christmas shopping for now hence the quick random post.  Cheerio dahlingz…

In all honesty green is one of my least favorite shades when it comes to makeup and clothes.  Because I have a very yellow undertone with oriental skin it’s not exactly a shade that complements me.  However if I absolutely had to choose a shade of green I would definitely lean towards emerald, the more cooler in the spectrum which sits somewhat in between kelly forest green and teal, do not confuse forest green or British racing green with emerald, totally different shades altogether.  Emerald has just been announced the Pantone color of the year for 2013 and while I might not wear it often I am glad it is the sort of green I prefer.  I only own one piece of emerald clothing, and it’s a tailored linen tube top Mom got me from Indonesia.  On my face I used L’oreal Lucent Magique foundation, Missha Perfect Concealer, Anastasia Express Brow kit for brows, and an Estee Lauder Pure Color lipstick in Mystic Mauve (from a Travel Exclusive set).

I’m wearing MBMJ stud earrings and over my emerald top I’m wearing my new M|phosis necklace (Php590)  in a gunmetal shade which I have been finding quite easy to wear even over plain white T-shirt tops.  I don’t usually force the issue and insist that I rock the color of the year with my wardrobe…never the case really but it’s fun to be able to see how the shade can work for you and just how many emerald green things the fashion industry will cough up for next year.  I don’t think I’d ever try emerald as makeup on myself, at most perhaps a gel liner or liquid liner just for fun but on a day to day basis I don’t think so.  Do you think you’ll be rocking 2013′s color of the year in any way?